Donating to the Government

Though blessed with lower taxes than those faced by many in western Europe, Americans never seem to get tired of complaining about taxation. Indeed, one could somewhat facetiously argue that the American nation was founded by people who simply didn't want to pay their taxes. When it comes to paying taxes, attitudes haven't changed much in the past couple of centuries. Given that there isn't corresponding popular enthusiasm for cutting government services, some brand the American electorate as selfish and wanting to have it both ways. I, personally, have a different view.

The United States is in some respects unique in that individual freedom and personal choice are a fundamental part of our very culture. We have no kaisers or kings past or present to honor; instead, we honor the individual. We expect to have the ability to self-determine the general path in life we will follow, and we expect to be able to influence the actions of our government. I would argue that one of the reasons taxation is such a contentious issue is that it doesn't let Americans be Americans: the average citizen is too shut off from the process of government spending. In an age of unpopular economic bailouts, the alienation between citizen and government when it comes to controlling the federal purse strings is becoming only more deeply felt.

Politicians have made matters worse by tending to discuss spending only very superficially during campaigns. Even Barack Obama more or less promised the world to his supporters during the presidential election -- unrealistic promises, even if a candidate is sincere, set the voters up for disappointment when they discover what the government is really spending their money to do. I think there is a feeling among politicians that budgetary matters are "boring" and should only be broached to the public in a few tried-and-true ways (like promising the world or promising to cut taxes...Obama actually used both approaches!). Boring they might indeed be, but they're also expensive for the taxpayer. As long as politicians can both frame the debate on spending during elections and make the decisions on how to spend while in office, it will remain difficult for John Q. Public to play a prominent role in deciding how his tax dollar should be spent.

I don't hold out much hope for politicians to change a game plan that still works awfully well for them so one solution might be to democratize spending. Let the people work out a budget or approve a budget in some way or another. I've said before that I think this would be interesting to see, and I think it would change America in many ways...but I worry that voters may not have the knowledge (or be willing to do the research) needed to make wise decisions when it comes to subjects like military spending, funding the space program, and distributing foreign aid. In truth, we probably wouldn't do a worse job of it than the politicians do -- it would just be different, in some ways better and in some ways worse. If all we really want to do is give the people a greater opportunity to set spending policy, though, there's a much easier solution that wouldn't require a dramatic change in the way America does business.

What I think should happen is that the U.S. government should put a big sign up in its theoretical front window that says, "Donations Welcome!" I've heard people like Warren Buffett state publicly that they aren't taxed enough ,and I have always wondered why people like that couldn't pay more to the government if they wanted to do so. Just letting billionaires send off blank checks to the government doesn't accomplish much, though -- if anything, it probably just encourages frivolous spending. What I really would like to see is the ability to give donations to the government with strings attached. For instance, a "Pay Down The Deficit" or "Shore Up Social Security" fund could be created. People could make voluntary contributions into these funds with the understanding that the government would have to use them for their intended purpose. I would fully expect individuals like Buffett to contribute the most in the beginning, but if this plan proves effective in actually yielding results I think average people would consider donating a few dollars to a worthy budgetary cause as well. The biggest negative to this plan that I can see is that it might seem to make government even less fiscally responsible -- they could effectively outsource some of their spending to the public without facing the unpopularity caused by raising taxes and so would have less reason to budget public funds responsibly. However, this plan will make people feel more involved in the spending process, and I would expect them to start expecting more of their elected officials as a result. In other words, if the people manage to massively reduce America's debt and the politicians end up massively increasing it again, I think a lot of politicians wouldn't get reelected. Politicians would be held more accountable for their spending decisions if they weren't the only spenders in town.

Perhaps ideally all government revenue could be raised voluntarily through donations rather than compulsorily through taxation. Sadly, I don't expect to live to see such a perfect system enacted in my lifetime partly because it would be dangerous -- imagine how even more precipitously government revenues might drop in a recession -- and partly because it'll always be very hard for people to put aside their individual dreams and goals for the public good. On one hand, people do want public schools and public roads and other things the government provides; on the other, these same people want to own homes and send their children to college and take their spouse out to dinner at a nice restaurant on their anniversary. At least in our present system it isn't foolish to pay your taxes -- if the government relied solely on donations, though, those who donated would be forced to do with less than those who acted more selfishly. Still, I think a lot of people might be surprised at just how generous the public can be if given the right opportunity.

The Corruptibility of One Man

All things being equal, I think a government which entrusts power into the hands of a few is more corruptible than one that entrusts power into the hands of the many. Although Pompey and Crassus were able to bribe their way to the Roman consulships of 55 B.C. at great cost, the sheer expense of the operation helps explain why vote buying hasn't subverted more representative governments than it has since then (it's still around, though, commonly in the guise of political machines). Nero and Caligula would certainly argue that dictatorship is the better shield for the commitment of great crimes. Nonetheless, corruption seems to always be with us to some degree regardless of form of government, time, or place. Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, accused of attempting to sell Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat for profit, seems to be a perfect example of a modern, corrupt American politician.

The Blagojevich story doesn't make me despair over the state of the American Republic, but it does suggest to me some of the vulnerabilities of our system. Part of the problem is how Blagojevich came to power in the first place. Political machines are still very much a part of Illinois politics, and they ensure that there is not a level playing field in elections. Candidates beholden to the machine and cooperative with it benefit from its power; on the other hand, those who refuse to feed the machine are often consumed by it. The whole Blagojevich mentality is rooted in the idea of favors and payback -- I'll do what you want if you do what I want, I'll help you now if you help me later. That's how political machines work; everyone owes somebody something, from the voter in the booth to the crook in the governor's mansion. Ideally, favors do to some extent "trickle down" to the common populace, but there is really no benefit for a political machine to enact policies that help everyone, including those not part of the machine. The other side of the problem is the concentration of power in one man, the governor. Blagojevich certainly never had absolute power by any stretch of the imagination -- indeed, he is very likely to pay dearly for his abuse of office. Still, he had enough power to subvert representative government. The fault is mainly his, but I also wonder about the wisdom of letting one official appoint another official to serve in an office that is normally filled by election. Should Blagojevich -- or any other one individual -- be in a position to appoint a senator? The 17th amendment to the Constitution, which also established the popular election of senators, gives governors this power, perhaps in order to ensure the efficient running of the Senate. Unfortunately, efficiency has a price. There will always be corrupt men like Blagojevich who will seek positions of prominence, but their corruption will be always be limited by the power vested in the offices they hold. Too much power vested in a single office makes the inevitable corruption more damaging when it occurs. Improperly assigned powers have the same effect.

Still, I wouldn't call the American system broken. It actually seems to be working fairly well in this case -- the allegedly corrupt official, Blagojevich, has been found out. He will have to face up to his crimes. I'm not sure what it will take to reform Illinois politics, but at the very least the Blagojevich experience should make future machine pols a little more cautious about how they go about their business. The governor might have been entrusted with too much power, but his power was not unchecked. In the name of hampering corruption, I think it's possible to make government too weak -- one advantage of the checks and balance system is that it does allow for a fairly strong yet still limited government. Ultimately, however, I would rather see vacant Senate seats filled by special election rather than by executive appointment. That would let the appointing of senators be strictly a duty for the voters in all cases, and it would close a door to corruption for the Blagojeviches of the world.

Some Final Thoughts on the 2008 Presidential Election

The election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States has been greeted with both exuberance and despair, but it was hardly the most surprising of results. Polls had shown the Illinois senator to be leading his Arizonan rival consistently for weeks prior to Election Day. Even more importantly, Obama ran the far superior campaign. Obama did what I think every presidential candidate should do: he openly expressed his political ideas at every opportunity offered to him. As basic as that sounds, certain prevaricating politicians often seem to me to not to have any real ideas at all, merely positions which shift with the political wind. At times, Obama was lambasted for being if anything too open -- for instance, John McCain was shocked that Obama would openly speak of conducting military operations against al-Qaeda in Pakistan. The president-elect was also open about his plan to "spread the wealth" of America around by raising taxes on the wealthy and on corporations in order to fund social programs and reduce the taxes of the non-wealthy. There are aspects of Obama's policies that I like and aspects that I don't like, but I've always appreciated how willing Obama was to lay out his positions openly and also how he was always willing to defend those positions philosophically. Obama's campaign was about Obama, as it should have been. Unfortunately, McCain's campaign was also about Obama, and there was no reason that it needed to be that way.

The McCain '08 campaign will probably be remembered as a very negative one which focused to a large extent on Obama's character, but McCain was also "negative" in the sense of being reactive and I think that's what hurt him the most. McCain was in permanent "compare and contrast mode" from start to finish in the general election. "Obama's tax policy is about spreading the wealth; mine isn't. Obama isn't pro-life; I am. Obama isn't experienced; I am." Compare and contrast definitely has a place in political argument (and Obama made good use of it), but what McCain too often forgot to do was make the philosophical case for his policies. He presented himself strongly as being against Obama's ideas, but he didn't always seem to be really for his own ideas. I ultimately think that McCain did do a good job articulating his tax policy, but I can't really think of any other issue that McCain really made his own (earmarks, perhaps). Even when it came to foreign policy, ostensibly the Republican's strength, McCain seemed to prefer to lambast his opponent's willingness to meet with unfriendly foreign rulers rather than explain why he personally favored a more standoffish, "carrot and stick" diplomatic approach. McCain always seemed to be reaching out to people who already knew that they agreed with him -- he was always preaching to the converted. Because McCain spent so much of his time criticizing Obama, I think his campaign was actually perceived as being dirtier than it really was; even valid criticisms of Obama's policies strike a dischordant note if they aren't balanced with positivity. The silliest thing about the McCain strategy is that Hillary Clinton followed quite a similar path to defeat in the Democratic primaries. I doubt I'll ever understand why McCain would try to copy a losing strategy instead of challenging Obama in a new and different way. That said, this was a tough year to run as a Republican -- voting the incumbent party out is a basic way for the electorate to express their disgust with their current government, and a lot of people are pretty digusted with the Bush administration right now. I'm not so sure Obama will be the president who will clean up Bush's messes, especially when it comes to civil liberties, but just the fact that the Republican didn't win this election makes it more likely that those messes will be cleaned up eventually...perhaps even by another Republican!

How will Obama handle the presidency? I actually think people SHOULD feel apprehensive about how their representatives will behave once in office, but there is probably too much fear of an Obama presidency in certain quarters. Not every conspiracy theory can possibly be true, right? In fact, if Obama simply governs as a reasonable moderate of a liberal persuasion, he'll erase much of the ill-will his political opponents feel towards him. How Obama's tax and spending policies will affect a weakening economy is my biggest concern, but, honestly, I'm interested in finding out even though I'm also scared. I've lived through the Clinton tax hike followed shortly by the Clinton tax cut followed by the Bush tax cut so I'm curious to see a real world test for the "bottom-up" taxation strategy Obama has consistently supported. I think it would probably be wiser (or at least safer) to not repeal any Bush tax cuts but yet to also go ahead with a small middle class tax cut if spending can be cut in other ways. Of course, the amount of any tax hike is going to be very important -- if it is small and targeted enough, it may not exactly encourage hiring or investment or the starting of new businesses, but the costs will probably be absorbed by the affected parties and life will go on after an initial bout of hemming and hawing. My greatest hope is that an Obama administration will be able to avoid any new, unnecessary wars (my main fear under a McCain administration)...I think we've got a decent chance of this, but Obama is not exactly a non-interventionist by any stretch of the imagination. Considering that the economy is likely to be Obama's biggest concern over at least the first year of his administration, I wonder how many of his other goals he'll be able to achieve. Will plans for universal health insurance fall to the wayside...again? Will alternative energy investments be neglected, in part due to falling gas prices? As I see it, the advantage Obama has by having a Democratic legislature in his corner is somewhat offset by the pressing nature of the recession -- like most presidents, I expect Obama will have trouble delivering on his campaign promises. It'll definitely be interesting to see how things play out. I don't see Obama as a "do-nothing" type of president, but he'd have to be Superman to get everything he wants done in this kind of economic environment.

One thing we're definitely not any closer to in America is a third party. The 2008 election was an Obama and McCain show, with no room for anything else. I really wish at least one of the three general election presidential debates could set aside some space for Ralph Nader, Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin, and/or Cynthia McKinney. Several important issues were swept under the rug in this election cycle simply because the two major party candidates held similar views on them, including the bailout, illegal immigration, and America's relations with Israel (Joe the Plumber's analysis of Obama not withstanding). Nader and crew would have brought some different ideas to the table on these and other issues -- it's a pity that most of America never got to hear those ideas. That said, if America would get off its collective butt, go online, and start researching third party and independent candidates more we wouldn't be so reliant on the mainstream debates. Heck, Ralph Nader and Chuck Baldwin had a couple of debates of their own in the past month (with Barr also participating in one) that I didn't even hear about until days after the fact...I'm definitely part of the problem here, not the solution! Well, there's always next election, right?

Slavery and the Constitution

I don't consider the U.S. Constitution to be a dated document. It was designed to be the framework for a government that would change with the times. While some of the language used may sound a trifle unusual to modern readers, there's little about the content that is firmly rooted in the century in which it was written. In my opinion, reading the Constitution remains the best way for anyone to learn about the American system of government as it was and as it still is. Still, although you won't find mention of pantaloons, powdered wigs, and muskets there, the body of the Constitution nonetheless was a product of a time and a place. Although the 13th Amendment which abolished slavery provides the definitive word on slavery's present legal status, there remain within the Constitution references to slavery which seem to acknowledge that the "peculiar institution" was an acceptable aspect of life in a supposedly free country.

Unfortunately, slavery is a black mark on many of mankind's early forays into representative government. Slaves could be found in the Athenian Democracy, the Roman Republic, and the Venetian Republic. It is as if it was relatively easy for people to take that first step and say, "Some people deserve rights and representation." To take the next logical step and extend equal rights and representation to all people, however, was extremely difficult, particularly when economic interests were involved. I can easily imagine some slavery defender of the past declaring, "But the slaves do the jobs that we don't want to do! Abolition will destroy the economy!" Americans can find some solace in the fact that slavery as an institution has been fiercely opposed from the very beginning of the United States. Even the writers of the Constitution disagreed vehemently on this issue. Still, it's impossible to call the pre-13th Amendment Constitution an anti-slavery document; you can at best say that slavery is inconsistent with the spirit of the Constitution, but, considering that Section II of Article IV cavalierly affirms the rights of slave owners to have their "property" restored to them if an escaped slave moves past state lines, that argument can be taken only so far.

I suppose the Constitution must be considered a historical document as well as a political one. Just as slavery is an inextricable part of American history, so too it must be an inextricable part of the U.S. Constitution. Still, the most important thing to me is that slavery, though enshrined within the Constitution, was ultimately abolished by the Constitution as well. Although the battle for civil rights is an ongoing on, continuing to the present day, at least legal slavery was put to an end once and for all. The United States moved further along than Athens, Rome, and Venice did; it did take a while, but it's still something Americans can feel proud about.

Isn't All Taxation Income Redistribution?

I think the most interesting issue of this year's presidential campaign has been taxation. While both John McCain and Barack Obama have presented themselves as being tax cutters, McCain has consistently supported across the board tax cuts whilst Obama has emphasized that tax cuts should be geared towards those who need them the most and, at the same time, taxes should be increased for those who can afford to pay more in his view. On a number of issues, Obama and McCain hold similar views, but there is a real difference in their attitudes towards taxation.

The McCain position is essentially that taxes are a necessary evil and that America's current tax rates are too high. Though no one will ever able to agree on the perfect tax rate, I think it's indisputable that high tax rates make things difficult for a lot of people, from the middle class family trying to eek by to the small or large business that needs money to expand and hire new workers. McCain, like President Bush, sees cutting tax rates as one of the best ways to spur new growth. Compared to Obama, McCain is more concerned with getting past the recession, not surviving it. Ideally, McCain's tax policies would help the American economy zoom through the recession and start thriving again quickly, but there's certainly no guarantee this will happen. There is also a philosophical component to McCain's position which is based on the idea of America being a land of the free and also a land of limited government. Reducing taxes reduces the imposition of government on the people; at the very least, it gives people with money more freedom to spend that money as they will. Furthermore, reduced tax revenue puts pressure on government to slim down which jives well with McCain's call for a government spending freeze and his long-running crusade against wasteful government spending. It doesn't necessarily go so smoothly with certain of McCain's other positions, however, notably when it comes to foreign policy: one indisputable lesson of Iraq is that wars cost a lot of money.

For Barack Obama, the end justifies the means when it comes to taxation. No one likes paying taxes, but there's a difference between the pang an American taxpayer feels when writing a check out to the IRS and the pain a burn victim feels as he is pulled out of the flames. Obama thinks that the good that can come out of government spending outweighs the ills of taxation; he believes that increasing access to health insurance and health care, cleaning up the educational system, and otherwise aiding the masses is more important than the free spending of the wealth one has earned. Furthermore, he doesn't seem to think that the ills of taxation are quite so severe as McCain believes. Lower taxes may encourage companies to expand, but big companies have also made the "golden parachute" into a household phrase. It's not only government that engages in wasteful spending; it's rife in the corporate world and among the wealthy as well. Obama essentially makes the argument that the rich and businesses should pay more in taxes because they can afford to do so -- profitable businesses will still be able to expand and make more profits and the rich will still be able to invest because there is so much wealth floating around, but by trimming the fat of the wealthy the country as a whole can benefit. I think whether this is really true or not is very situational. Some businesses and some people really probably can afford higher taxes without cutting back too much , but not everyone will be able to bear the increased burden so lightly. The recent financial crisis has demonstrated how easily even huge businesses can fail quite suddenly so we shouldn't treat a change in tax policy in any way but seriously. Let's also not forget that Obama is an anti-tax crusader himself when it comes to the middle class. First and foremost, I think Obama's tax cuts will make it easier for folks to survive the recession even if they have been hit hard by the mortgage crisis and credit crunch; I think it's more of a humanitarian gesture than an economic one. At the same time, those tax cuts should encourage consumer spending which is good for the economy and could help keep a lot of businesses afloat. Obama also seems to believe very much in the power of government spending to create jobs and boost the economy; for instance, he wants the government to take a leading role in the drive towards alternative energy sources and he also supports increased government spending on infrastructure (public works projects can create a lot of jobs and give a nice boost to the construction and related industries). To an extent, Obama wants to use government to provide the economic boost that McCain hopes his tax cuts will encourage the wealthy and businesses to provide. Personally, my biggest beef with Obama is that he is not more focused on the most important goals he wants to achieve when it comes to spending -- for instance, I really don't believe spending money on encouraging community service is something the government needs to be worried about right now.

Clearly, McCain and Obama aren't on the same page when it comes to taxation. On the other hand, they're not quite as different from one another as the McCain campaign wants people to believe. Obama has been repeatedly branded an income redistributor and a socialist (and perhaps by extension "un-American") of late because of his tax policies, but we've had the progressive income tax in America for a long time now. I don't think it's fair to call someone who wants to make an adjustment within a system of taxation that has existed through many such adjustments over many years an agent of radical change. In fact, McCain also wants to make adjustments to that system but in the opposite direction. McCain certainly doesn't seem to mind disproportionately relying on the taxation of the wealthy to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; he probably won't mind relying on it again if another war or two starts under his watch. Granted, McCain has spoken of the flat tax sympathetically in the past, but it doesn't seem to be a part of his current platform. As I see it, ALL taxation is income redistribution -- it always involves the government taking money away from individuals, away from families, and away from businesses and spending it in a way that the previous holders of the money can generally only influence indirectly. McCain may want to reduce the amount of income redistribution rather than increase it as Obama wants to do, but both presidential candidates are redistributers. I don't understand why the social spending advocated by Obama is often treated as if it was in some way worse than other government spending. Perhaps taxation for war spending seems less like income redistribution to some because the troops are fighting for everyone, but the fact remains that all war funds raised by taxation were taken forcibly and spent without the explicit approval of the taxpayer. While Obama does want a bigger government, I don't think any of his policies are really more socialistic in nature than some of the government's recent attempts to address the financial crisis -- AIG, for instance, has essentially been nationalized...a really, really, REALLY socialistic thing to do. I think Obama and McCain both make superb arguments for their respective views on taxation; I'd even go so far as to say their arguments have raised the level of discourse on this subject in American society for the time being. At the end of the day, though, they're both essentially income-redistributin', reluctant socialists, just like FDR and Ronald Reagan. McCain is being disingenuous by claiming to be something else.

The Detail Man and the Populist

Tonight's vice presidential debate pitted two campaigns against each other that have moved in very different directions of late. Obama/Biden has been surging as banks have failed and the stock market has tanked. Meanwhile, McCain/Palin has been struggling as McCain quasi-suspended his campaign last week to supposedly focus on the financial crisis and Palin has come under fire because of a pair of uncomfortable interviews with Katie Couric. A great deal of scrutiny has been placed on Palin lately, with some pundits even going so far as to call on her to step aside from the campaign. Sarah Palin, thus, had much more to prove tonight; Biden, on the other hand, needed only to attack McCain and praise Obama to fulfill his duties. In my view, both succeeded in their missions.

Following the Republican Convention, Governor Palin has come across to me as more unprepared than incompetent. I suspect that even the most "experienced" of politicians must struggle to remember the specifics of bills and voting records; Palin has reminded me of a student who hasn't studied for a test rather than one who couldn't find a way to pass even if she had studied. Apart from this unpreparedness, I think she has also been a little too eager to spin rather than answer questions directly; she certainly should have been able to speak freely to Couric about where she gets her news from, for instance, but she probably got afraid that she'd mention some news source deemed too liberal by the conservative establishment. Of course, it's also likely that she gets a lot of news updates from her staff -- still, I imagine she's looked at a few national newspapers in her time that she could have mentioned...at least I hope she has. The one positive to emerge from Palin's bad press is that there were no expectations on her going into this debate. As long as she didn't sound too uncomfortable or say anything too ridiculous, she would exceed many people's expectations. I didn't really notice any glaring gaffes from her in tonight's debate. While she didn't address every topic raised directly, she had a lot to say and she did a fine job of projecting warmth and confidence. She didn't seem scared or unprepared; she sounded like a perfectly suitable vice presidential candidate, in fact.

That said, I think Joe Biden clearly won this debate. Palin may not have sounded unprepared, but Senator Biden was if anything overprepared. He has a habit of making reference to specifics in debates, but his discussion of particular bills, voting records, and even the constitutional role of vice presidents tonight suggested an almost encyclopedic knowledge of American politics. He was impressive, and Palin struggled to score points for her team on the issues because Biden seemed to be ready for just about any argument. In stark contrast to the sharp back and forths of the first McCain and Obama debate, this vice presidential debate was a considerably gentler affair, and the attacks were largely focused on the presidential candidates. Palin seemed to thrive in this gentler atmosphere; in particular, she did a very good job throughout the debate of appealing directly to the proverbial average American. For instance, she stated very directly that the blame on the mortgage crisis should be placed squarely on predatory lenders, not the regular folks who bit off more mortgage than they could chew. She tried to articulate some of the anger that the victims of the crisis feel by essentially declaring that the American people won't be fooled again and unregulated financiers will never be allowed to run amok again. Palin seems careful not to promise too much, though; as much as she wanted to demonstrate that she empathizes with the common man and woman, she largely steered clear of making specific policy commitments geared towards the masses. In that way, she may not seem to fit the classic model of a populist candidate, but she has definitely been more of a people-oriented than issue-oriented candidate so far. While Palin did an excellent job of presenting herself as a warm and caring person, she had a harder time defending her running mate against Biden who seemed to know about just about every congressional vote Senator McCain has ever made. She couldn't effectively respond to Biden when he mentioned McCain's past opposition to alternative energy or McCain's agreement with Bush on the "important issues," for instance. Her very pro-regulation stance in the debate seemed to be at odds with McCain's past positions, which Biden also criticized repeatedly. I'm not sure what to make of this other than possibly that the financial crisis has made McCain more in favor of regulation of the financial industry than he has been in the past.

I thought Palin made two effective attacks on Obama/Biden, and both were related to foreign policy. First, she attacked Obama's characterization of the American mission in Afghanistan as air-raiding villages and killing civilians. That remark, though made by Obama while he was explaining why he wants to change America's policy in Afghanistan (he's actually in favor of much MORE American involvement in Afghanistan), does paint a rather ugly picture of the American military. All wars are ugly, but unless Obama decides that he wants to cease involvement in Afghanistan I strongly suspect civilians will continue to be killed unintentionally there. Palin's second effective attack was actually directed against Joe Biden who seemed to be trying to paint himself as a dove who had never really supported the Iraq war. I heard the same Democratic debates that Palin referenced in her attack, and I also don't believe Biden and Obama were originally on the same page when it comes to Iraq. "Joe Biden" and "dove" don't belong together in the same sentence! Granted, it is true that Biden and McCain haven't supported the exact same strategies and/or tactics in Iraq, but Biden has never been a leader of the anti-war movement. Palin's other attacks weren't nearly so effective, and one was particularly poor. Her attempt to criticize Obama for voting against a war funding bill backfired badly on her when Biden pointed out that McCain had also voted against a (different) war funding bill -- neither senator really wanted to leave the troops stranded, but they both used their votes to make opposite political statements regarding timelines for withdrawal at different times. Neither of them has any business righteously chastising anyone on that issue...Biden, though, just might because he voted for funding even when Obama didn't. Palin was foolish to bring this topic up. Another bad moment for Palin came when she suggested it might be be nice if the vice president could have more power -- I don't think that's something even Republicans want after eight years of the shadowy Dick Cheney, and Biden was quite eloquent and erudite when he discussed the proper role of a vice president (and criticized the aforementioned shadowy Cheney).

While Palin's comfortable performance should reassure those McCain faithful who are skeptical of the Alaskan governor's fitness for office, Biden's better showing may win over some more undecided voters to his ticket. Most pundits say that vice presidential debates tend not to have much impact, and I'm not sure this one will be any different. Palin, though, was the "story" many people had on their minds before the debate; as such, her decent performance may very well prove to be more valuable for her campaign than Biden's superior performance is for his. Palin definitely didn't provide the disaster that I'm sure many Obama supporters were hoping for...the governor is probably going to get her first good night's sleep in a while tonight.

The Ole Miss Presidential Debate

I always find presidential debates interesting, but I'm not sure I've anticipated one so eagerly before as I did tonight's debate at the University of Mississippi. After months of ads, fighting surrogates, lightweight political forums, and solo speeches, Barack Obama and John McCain finally met together on one stage for a face-off. The surprising behavior of McCain over the past few days made things all the more interesting. While I was very interested in hearing Obama and McCain spar over the economic crisis and foreign policy, I have to admit I was also quite interested in the more mundane political matter of whether or not McCain's campaign was still in a "suspended" state.

As far as I can tell, McCain's campaign was unsuspended as suddenly as it was suspended. I really cannot believe McCain would make such an aboutface without any explanation given during the debate. Still, that seems to be just what has happened. I heard no mention of a suspended campaign tonight; I didn't even hear anything about how McCain was desparately needed in Washington to help save the economy. Unless there is some further clarification forthcoming, I have to interpret McCain's behavior as all but admitting that the suspension of his campaign was indeed a mere political ploy. Theatrics. McCain deserves the title of maverick, but he has proven that he is first and foremost a politician.

That said, I tried not to let my surprise over McCain's behavior to color my view of the debate. In my opinion, both candidates performed well in Oxford. The format of the debate allowed Obama and McCain to question (or, more often, attack) one another after they responded to moderator Jim Lehrer's initial query. There was a lot of back and forth between the two candidates which I rather enjoyed. True, there was a fair bit of the sniping that often makes political debates very tedious to witness, but both candidates were able to get their shots in tonight without taking too much time away from expostulating their own views. McCain did seem to make a theme of pointing out Obama's "naivete" particularly when it came to matters of foreign policy. Obama tried, as he has consistently done in speeches, to link McCain with President Bush's policies. While Obama is in my view far superior at giving long-form speeches than McCain, I think McCain is a rather underrated debater; he was able to hold his own against Obama quite well in my opinion.

Probably the most interesting section of the debate to me was devoted to the economic crisis. While both Obama and McCain support the bailout in the short term, they have very different plans for encouraging economic recovery. Obama had harsh words for the philosophy of trickle-down economics that he says Bush and McCain espouse, noting that some people were experiencing economic crises of their own long before the Wall Street and banking giants started tumbling. Obama's bottom-up strategy is instead designed to alleviate economic pressure on those least able to recover from economic catastrophe, at the expense of a corporate America that exploits loopholes to evade paying taxes yet throws away huge amounts of money to greedy executives. McCain, in contrast, took pains to praise business, noting that lower taxes for businesses encouraged economic activity and provided jobs. He also emphasized the importance of cutting spending and even dwelled at some length on one of his favorite topics of years gone by, earmarks. To hear McCain speak, it sounds like he intends to veto any bill loaded down with earmarks. In practice, I imagine this would lead to a very adversarial relationship between the president and Congress -- if people think Congress is slow to move now, just wait until McCain starts vetoing every bill that carries a whiff of wasteful pork barrel spending. McCain has done a good job of doing what I suggested some months back; he has positioned himself more or less as a small government, lower taxes kind of guy. He's also attempted (less successfully in my view) to paint Obama as someone who will tax everyone and spend prodigally; Obama has strongly and consistently refuted the claim that he will raise taxes on everyone and did so again tonight. The spender label is harder to avoid. Obama seemed secure in his commitment to his ambitious but expensive energy and health care plans, though he did acknowledge at least in the case of his energy plan that the economic crisis could delay its implementation. Throughout the debate, Obama did well in tying the energy crisis to other issues, such as foreign policy and economic recovery. McCain definitely came across as the more fiscally responsible of the two to me even though I'm skeptical that he'll be quite the earmark vetoer he is painting himself as. On the other side, I find myself sometimes wishing Obama had more of a pragmatic air about him when it comes to economic issues. While I don't think Obama has any desire to tax middle and lower income people hard, I somehow can't imagine him cutting taxes on the rich and lowering the capital gains tax like Bill Clinton did -- having an idealist committed to social justice in the White House could bring about a lot of good things, but we do have a recession to beat as well. Although trickle-down economics is often used as a negative term, I actually think the underlying idea behind it has some merits if it is not taken to extremes. This has been a really long paragraph.

On to foreign policy. McCain does seem to have a natural advantage when it comes to foreign policy relative to his younger opponent. All those years haven't been wasted -- McCain, as a soldier and as a member of the United States government, has travelled the world. He knows foreign leaders. He's passionate about America's security. He's genuinely interested in foreign policy and defense issues. Obama can't compete with McCain when it comes to experience and perhaps not even in enthusiasm when it comes to foreign policy. What Obama does offer, however, is a rather different take on world affairs. He continues to advocate for a timely withdrawal of troops from Iraq. McCain, by contrast, is closely associated with the surge strategy in Iraq that has led to reduced violence but an increased troop presence in Iraq. I have to admit I personally was totally wrong about the surge -- I thought it would lead to a surge of violence in the short term, and Obama seems to have thought about the same thing. The success of the surge strategy is perhaps the brightest feather in McCain's foreign policy cap; in my view, the surge has definitely led to a better situation for all in Iraq. For Obama, though, the Iraq war will always be a mistake and a distraction no matter how successfully the war effort is waged; he regards Afghanistan as the primary theater of the war on terror and feels that al-Qaeda has grown stronger in recent years because we have not been committed enough to winning that war. Although Obama does seem to place more emphasis on diplomacy relative to McCain, I'm not sure I would classify one as a dove and one as a hawk. Obama essentially wants the surge to move from Iraq to Afghanistan; he wants the troops out of Iraq not so much because he expects peace to result as because he thinks the troops would better serve their country if they were deployed elsewhere. Obama certainly seems to take a harsher view of Pakistan than McCain does, for instance, and he definitely leaves the door open for military operations within Pakistan's tribal areas. Both Obama and McCain condemn Russia's invasion of Georgia and see it is a threat to the United States' allies in the region. McCain did seek to portray Obama as being not quite enough on Georgia's side, but I would say they're both pretty much on the same page there even down to NATO membership for former Soviet republics.

The most vigorous foreign policy argument between the two was over whether or not an American president should ever meet with a roguish leader like Iran's Ahmadinejad without preconditions. McCain attacked Obama for being willing to engage in such a meeting; in fact, McCain didn't just attack...he mocked. He acted like a condescending teacher trying to explain a ridiculously simple concept to some obtuse schoolboy. Honestly, though, I'm not sure I got the lesson either. McCain's argument seems to based on the idea that an American president who meets with an enemy leader without preconditions is somehow legitimising that leader in the eyes of the world. Ahmadinejad is definitely a villain in my view, but I don't see how he can be considered anything but legitimate -- he is an elected member of the Iranian government. Like it or not, he's part of the reality of Middle Eastern politics at the moment. I tend to think that wise diplomatic policy requires keeping in contact with all sorts of nations and governments. Sometimes the relations between countries will be more or less hostile, but if circumstances dictate that enemies should meet then so be it. I don't really think fears about legitimising an evil leader should prevent us from engaging in diplomacy that could possibly avert a war or prevent nuclear proliferation. We certainly have no reason to be overly friendly towards Iran. We shouldn't placate or appease the Iranians. We should be able to talk to them, though, and if for some reason there's an advantage to having a president meet up with Ahmadinejad without preconditions I just don't see what's so terrible about that. Obama did try to make the point that a meeting on the presidential level would not necessarily occur between the United States and Iran -- he emphasized instead the importance of lower level diplomatic meetings. Theoretically speaking, I don't see anything wrong with Obama's stance. Maybe I'm wrong about this just as I was about the consequences of the surge, but at the very least I think McCain could have made his point more clearly and more respectfully.

As puzzled as I continue to be about McCain's pseudo-suspension, I'm glad that this debate happened and I am looking forward to the upcoming October rematches. Both McCain and Obama are very much in this race -- yes, I think McCain will survive the weirdness of this week, especially given his strong debate performance tonight. I would classify the debate overall as a draw with McCain doing better than expected in the economic portion of the debate and Obama doing better than expected during the foreign policy segment.